Bar-b-cue Ribs…
The first time I had Montgomery Inn ribs was a near ecstatic experience for me on a couple different levels.
I was a computer programmer in 1985 and was in Cincinnati for several days of training. We had a per diem for meals of $25, and, if used properly one could live like a king; well, maybe not a king but a poor man’s Donald Trump.
Each day began with a few bucks at a fast food joint providing you with an abundance of fat and protein in the form of bacon, egg and cheese atop some sort of muffin, bagel or toast. We’d drop a few more bucks for lunch as we walked across the parking lot to Wendy’s and got our fill of hot-n-juicy. Unfortunately, we were nearly comatose an hour into the afternoon session.
By the time dinner rolled around we were left with enough money for a very good meal out, and the Montgomery Inn quickly became a favorite choice. I describe my experience as near ecstatic because Montgomery Inn had the best bar-b-que ribs I had ever eaten. What made my experience ecstatic on two levels was the taste of the ribs and the appetizer we got.
We ordered shrimp tempura with plum and mustard sauce to begin our meal. With the aroma of over-used cooking oil wafting across the table I reached for a piece of the shrimp. Without really thinking I scooped the warm and succulent formerly bottom dwelling crustacean into a ramekin filled with mustard sauce that had a large dollop of plum sauce floating in the middle.
With the fluidity of Chinese acrobat and a singular motion my hand went from the ramekin to my mouth at which time I discovered I had just eaten napalm! Ecstatically speaking, it was the hottest thing I had ever tasted in my life, and it still is to this day. I think my brain began to boil in that moment. The mustard shot through the roof of my mouth in what can only be described as Chernobyl-like heat; the bite came out of my mouth as quickly as it had gone in. My eyes watered and I thought I saw Lieutenant Dan in a rice paddy in the Mekong Delta.
As I was leaving my house today around 6:15am for an early morning meeting with two friends of mine I was walking across the brick-lined street to get into my car when I thought of bar-b-cue ribs. I thought of how I’ve seen some people each bar-b-cue ribs.
I love fall-off-the-bone ribs; the kind that melts in your mouth almost as if it were a smoky piquant Jell-O, the kind Bill Cosby would grin at then eat with a spoon, letting each drop slide down the back of his tongue like meaty gummy worms.
When ribs are that good all that’s left to do is to pick up the individual bones, run them into your mouth and suck the sauce off with pleasurable joy.
I thought of those ribs being sucked dry because far too often that’s what it feels like when you’re a pastor. Sometimes you feel like the meat of your soul has been picked at like Prometheus’s was when Zeus had him punished by having him bound to a rock while a great eagle ate his liver every day, only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day.
Each demand devours a little more of you, and sometimes the constant demand means the bone is picked clean. And in that moment something comes along to suck the last vestiges of juice off the bone—the last bit of life that was left in you.
A day goes by, and as with Prometheus, the meat returns because God somehow knows when the bones are dry and he gives you just enough meat to keep going.
Yesterday, was one of those days where somebody picked up the bone, slid it into their mouth, and by their actions sucked the last bit of bar-b-cue sauce and juice out of me. I wish people knew how demoralizing some of their actions, or lack of actions, are to a pastor.
I read a statistic today where 1,500 pastors per month leave the ministry; sadly, that seems an awful lot like eating molten mustard and plum sauce. On the outside it looks and smells appealing, but once ingested it burns the hell out of you, and you’re ready to spit it out.
